First week of classes

Oh my, the first week of classes is upon us and its stressful and exhausting, but also exhilarating and rewarding so far. I'm currently on one of my prep/sub periods and am taking a break from writing a pre-test for my Chemistry classes to update all of you on my first few days of school. Faga'itua uses a block schedule, so I'm still trying to get used to the long class times and plan enough to fill a period. This is made more difficult when dealing with a bell schedule run by Samoans, who have little concern for time. Sometimes classes go 10-20 minutes longer than they should, other times they're cut 15 minutes short. Ah well, will just take some getting used to. 

My Chemistry students are a great bunch of kids, they can be a bit rowdy though, especially when I have them in the afternoon. I teach Chem periods 4, 5, and 6, so the period 6 kids will have the benefit of me going through a lesson twice before getting to them. The poor period 4 kids have been my troubleshooting class so far, and devolved into a chaotic mess yesterday morning when I couldn't think of something to to for the last 15 minutes of class when my lesson ran short. As of now, I've also been given one small section of Earth and Space science, but I've yet to actually meet them, so I'm not convinced yet haha. I'm really hoping that works out because I think an Earth science classroom is really where I can be the most help while I'm here in Samoa. I think I can handle teaching High School Chem, but I'm sure I'll be much more passionate in my ESS class.

I can already tell that I need to become a bit more strict. I'm going to institute a day to day points system that will hopefully make managing the classroom easier, but said I wouldn't start it until next week, mostly so I could organize myself before dealing with it. The kids are already pushing boundaries and testing me, so I need to knuckle down next week and enforce my rules consistently. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it.

One thing thats already really hitting home to me is how much work teaching is. I've always respected teachers and tried to appreciate the ones I've had, but that's at a whole new level now that I'm faced with a year of managing these classrooms.

Quick post today, have to get back to work so that I can print out these exams for tomorrow.